


From which all matter is formed

by JenCforCarolina



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Enemies to Friends, Loss of Limbs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:35:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26842240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenCforCarolina/pseuds/JenCforCarolina
Summary: Triksis and Ylem are too young to remember the source of their conflict, but not yet too old to stop. So much has changed so quickly since the Red War, perhaps they can also change a little bit more.
Comments: 29
Kudos: 22





	1. Chapter 1

Triksis, more than most, knew the value of staying hidden. She was the only survivor of her band, and a survivor because she kept her stealth tech charged, and used it only when needed. When the Red Ones marched on their encampment, steamrolled the other scouts and went straight for the homes, she gathered her cloak and most beloved shock blades and hid in the highest alcove she could find. She stayed invisible as long as she could.

When they left she emerged, gathered all the ether she could find, and stepped out into the wilds.

She scavenged from the Red Ones, from the Given, occasionally from what remained of other eliksni, destroyed by one or the other. She survived by getting in and out amidst confusion, quiet and stealthy. It usually served her well, but today her luck changed.

Today, she was tailing a Red supply route, prepared to cut piping from their blocky pikes to repair her ether tubes. She tracked them from the trees and underbrush, keeping low, using trunks for cover. She knew this route, knew the point along the road that was most broken and treacherous, that the convoy would be forced to slow and navigate.

Triksis crept closer as the legion reduced speed, clutched her stealth controls and let invisibility envelop her. The second transport looked the worst for wear, the easiest for her to climb aboard and take what she needed. She snuck through the ranks of the lumbering infantry, dumb and inattentive, too busy grumbling amongst themselves to see the small form slip by. She made it to her prize swiftly, hopped gently aboard and made for the nearest exposed wiring. Her hand went to her knife.

It was then a sound gave her pause, an unexpected but unmistakable noise of Given magic erupting. The ether in her respirator seemed to grow even colder and she craned her neck frantically, seeking the source.

From above plummeted something purple. Large Given, armored, the kind she’d heard called Kellbreakers. It dove from somewhere high, a tree or a rocky ridge, Great Machine’s gift curled like a servitor’s eye in front of it. This shield and it’s bulk slammed into the massive Red One at the front of the convoy, and the road erupted into chaos.

Triksis abandoned her quarry and bolted, darting nimbly between the infantry and shieldbearers, trying her best not to get cornered. She heard loud cracks of Given rifles amid the wild firing of Red cannons. Two more Given emerged from the trees, one crackling arc from it’s hands, the other fire. These moved like hive-brood-mothers, floated and cast their gifts in wide arcs. The Red shieldbearers turned to face them, protecting Triksis unknowingly. No one had noticed her yet, but that would not last long.

Darting as quickly as she could without being seen, she burst from the fray and tucked behind a slight knoll. There was a low ridge before her and the open forest -her freedom- was on the other side of the fighting. Peering over her sheltering rock, she saw the Red Ones had not seen her, but were nonetheless approaching her position. The Given ambushers were herding them, backing them up against the cliffs. Good for Given, bad for Red Ones, worse for her.

She pulled her head down once more, searched left then right for a route across the road. Left had less cover, and more fighting. The bulk of the patrol was engaged with two large Given, armored more than Archons. But to her right... 

A mere arm’s reach from her was the fiery Given, hunkered down as well, a sidearm in hand, facing her. It finished clicking something into place and glanced up, almost appeared to miss her stealthy form. Triksis did not breathe, held perfectly still, but it stopped and tilted it’s head, peered directly at her. Behind her, she heard the Red Ones roar, but she was much more focused on the danger close enough to touch. The Given, however, looked on, twitching as though startled by the bellow. Triksis thought maybe this was her chance, and gathered her legs beneath her to leap away.

The Given looked back at her, saw her movement for certain. In one lurching motion it dove, tackling her to the ground. Triksis began to hiss and spit, but she was drowned out by the whine and thunderous explosion from the Red Ones artillery passing just over them both, the flash silhouetting this Given’s squarish helm in her view. 

It dawned, as the pair of them tumbled down a short gully to the base of the cliffs, that the Given had saved her life. 

Triksis landed hard on her back, the impact dissolving her camouflage, and revealed to the Given exactly whom it had just saved. In what could only be shock, it lurched back from her, scooting itself a couple paces on it’s backside. It’s species was not equipped for agility.

Triksis glanced around, searching for a way out of this even more perilous predicament. The cliff walls at her back were steep and hard to climb stealthily. The hill sloped up past the Given, towards combat and then freedom, but she would need her stealth tech to recharge in order to make it, and that would take time. 

She reached for her shock blade, ready to take a stand and fight her way out, but the Given raised empty hands. It started to speak in strange musical words, with none of the nuances that defined eliksni tone. Impossible to tell if it was angry, scared, excited. The Given tried to move forward and Triksis barked at it, baring her jaw and bringing her shock-blade up defensively. It stopped, flinching back. It mumbled something else, even quieter, then spoke up, in something Triksis could almost understand.

It offered a word, took a few tries to recognize the sounds but once Triksis thought she did, she could not unhear it. The Given was trying to speak eliksni. Trying to apologize.

“Sorry.” She corrected, and the Given parroted it back, still poorly, and without the secondary undertone. “Sorry.” She repeated, and the Given tried again. Better, still bad. Triksis shook her head and gave up.

“What for?” She challenged, waited for the Given to understand, and try.

There was a jumble of attempted sounds, ones that could not even begin to form words. After three tries, it managed to sound out the word “mistake” to a reasonable accuracy.

Before she could begin to build a response, another loud artillery strike hit the crest of the hill they’d fallen from, raining dust and dirt on them both. The Given flinched, shielding itself with its two meager arms. Triksis took that time to make a choice and back up, beginning to scale the wall behind her. The Given shouted, and she whipped her head around, but it’s attention was only half on her.

From the rocks nearby a form peeled away, camouflage rippling. Another Given, one of the sneaking ones, this one with a gun aimed on Triksis’s eyes. The first Given stepped between them, pleading with the second. The moment the one with a gun appeared to take it’s attention off her, Triksis resumed climbing, leaping from handhold to handhold as quickly as she could. At the top she looked back down and saw the second one still had their gun aimed, but had not fired. Strange, complicated, certainly ominous.

The Red ones across the gully roared. Triksis snapped her head up to see the new threat, locked eyes with the largest of them as it leveled it’s canon. 

The Given that had spoken, the Given that had tried, ran up the embankment as the rockets fired. It’s armor seemed to glow orange as the sun and blot out everything else, it was a mesmerizing distraction even as Triksis dove. She thought she saw their sun-blade form in time to slice through a swath of the rocket shells, but it was hard to tell with the light. 

And even if the Given had stopped some, the other shells impacted anyway. One caught her left side and sent her sprawling. The pain was beyond anything she had ever felt. Had her shields worked, her armor saved her? She couldn’t even think about it. Instinctively, she clutched her upper left fist, clicked the control, and was relieved as the stealth swallowed her, most of her. Her blood was still visible, but hopefully the blur would keep her from being targeted again, hopefully the Red Ones would forget her, the Given would assume her dead, leave her here. 

There were flashes still from the battle, and Triksis turned her head to see the Given doing what Given do, sending flames into the Red Ones with swings of a blade. Fiery wings kept it aloft. She watched it until the orange turned blurry and grew to white, filling her entire vision, before it faded to black.


	2. Chapter 2

She went into darkness feeling pain. Coming out, it is more of a dull throb, warning her not to move. There is pressure on her side, where the pain comes from. She can’t imagine where it is, or what is happening, without looking.

Triksis cracks one eye open, defiant.

It takes a moment to resolve the area around her. Dim, mostly, with brightness further away. A cave, she is in a cave.

The motion over her side attracts her attention, enough to squint open two more of her eyes.

The fiery Given -now extinguished- leans over her, pressing both flimsy hands into her side. This is the resistance to her breathing. It is… they are stopping her from bleeding out. She wasn’t able to place where the pressure was because it is somewhere utterly alien… where her lower left arm used to be.

It is too much, she opens all of her eyes wide and lets out a strangled cry. The Given jolts in surprise yet holds firm on their task. Mumbling nonsense but quiet, soft nonsense.

The other Given she saw before slinks from the shadows of the cave and into view. They wear a hood, like all the stealthy ones do. They stalk silently up to Triksis’s other side, squat down and inspect her as well, from some distance. Then, in quite good -though toneless- eliksni, says: “You are saved, show thanks.”

“My arm…” She rasps, frustrated with showing her pain and weakness but too tired to hide the lamentation.

“You are alive.” The hooded one counters, odd and emotionless. Their voice has all the necessary layers, but is as fragmented as a recording damaged by compression.

Triksis cannot argue, and turns her eyes away, watching through slits the motions of the kind one. They are loosening their hold and pressure, searching for something. When they take a knife to Triksis’s already shortened cloak, she can’t hold back a whine. Kindness freezes, checking if they have caused any pain. The hooded Given seems to understand, saying something and motioning to their own cloak. The pair discuss a moment, before a pile of fabric is transmatted into Kindness’s arms. A long, sleeved garment like the one they wear, this one a dusty grey-blue, opposing their current dark grey and gold garb. Taking up the knife again, they begin sawing off chunks of the fabric. When they have a few, they set it aside and press hands onto the wound once more.

It hurts, Triksis clamps her jaw but cannot avoid tensing the rest of her body. She brings her right arm over to press on the wound as well.

Kindness shifts, taking their hands away. They hover above Triksis’s for a moment, before one hand lightly brushes her wrist.

The touch makes her flinch, and then hiss in pain and regret it. When they try to touch her again she just glares at them, keeping her gaze directly on their helm. Gently, they pry her fingers up, shifting her hand further down. She allows it, begrudgingly, understanding the importance, and folds her upper right arm across her chest to hold the bandages as well. With her remaining left hand, she pushes the Given’s hands away. 

As soon as this bleeding stops she plans to leave. She looks to the cave entrance. It is not far, and the hooded Given is departing, leaving her alone with the Kind one and their terrible grasp of eliksni language.

This is all a mess, she is wounded in a cave and has seen and spoken to two Given, didn’t they come in threes? Where is their third? What do they want with her? She does not even have a band to rescue her, no Captain will send scouts to find her. She is utterly alone.

A shuddering starts in her arms, tremors of pain and fear. Kindness notices, leans over them, starts cooing unintelligible words again.

It takes time, but eventually she has no choice but to stop. Her panic is changing nothing. Triksis takes a deep breath, then a few more, and begins to surrender back to sleep.

Kindness nudges her, and she growls back. They put their hands on hers, increasing the pressure on the wound, and talk to her in annoying Given-speak. It is insistent and too loud...

Triksis grunts, remembers something about how one should not fall asleep when grievously wounded. Perhaps she is being told to stay awake. In that case, she lowers her eyelids to slits, and glares at the Given. They seem satisfied, and return to work, slicing the fabric and laying the strips in a pile on her legs, away from the dirt of the cave floor. When the entire garment is dissected, they begin taking strips and tying them together, forming a cable of cloth. They take a few loose pieces and fold them, moving Triksis’s hands from the wound and peeling away the bloody fabric. The act makes her spit and curse, but they carry on heedlessly, replacing bloody cloth with clean.

Then Kindness shifts, looping the tied strips of cloth over her shoulder, and puts one knee on the other side of Triksis’s body. She feels small, as the Given looms, though they are at least equal in size…

What they do is not kind, and Triksis clamps her jaw against cries of pain as the Given shifts an arm under her waist, and lifts. The agony shoots up her side, through her veins, and makes her pant into the thinning ether supply in her respirator. She tries feebly to swat the Given away, but can’t even tell if she hits anything. Her vision blurs and swims, her heart pounds in her ears.

Gradually, mercifully, it subsides, and she becomes aware of her hips being lowered to the floor once again. Not-So-Kindness is back in the same spot they were before, tying off the long strips of makeshift bandages. They had wound them under Triksis’s body twice in that short, painful time. To lift her almost fully… Given were stronger than even the stories. Dully, she begins to understand how she reached this cave in the first place. There are spikes up her side again as Kindness adjusts the placement of the wraps, and at long last seems satisfied. Almost gently, they fix Triksis’s cloak beneath her head. 

Even as the pain fades and her vision returns to normal, Triksis is overwhelmed by this entire ordeal. This Given has touched her and not snapped her neck, or stabbed her heart, or vaporized her, or anything of the like. It is too surreal, and now that she is growing used to the pain, it is beginning to worry her what these Given want. 

There is motion at the cave entrance. Her heart races again as the hooded-one-that-spoke-well returns with a bundle under their arm. They walk with ominous swagger and glaring intent and it makes her feel like prey.

The hooded one kneels beside her and takes their helmet off, revealing themselves as a machine with glowing, piercing eyes. They pull from their bundle a vial of ether, fiddle around the respirator and pop out the old capsule, replacing it like they had done it many times. The old sup still had some left, and Triksis laments its loss, but sees twice as many in the pile than she often finds in a moon cycle. The sweet, fresh, invigorating ether cycles into her respirator, and she breathes deeply and calmly, save a shuddering hiccup when her wound tweaks. She tries not to think of where the sups came from, knows that other eliksni must have been killed for it. Killed so she may live. Why her?

The hooded Given stands, leaving the ether there, and meanders to the mouth of the cave, taking up a position like a guard. Kindness settles beside Triksis, kneeling. They pull their helmet off, and their face is blue like a dusty sky. Awoken, doom of House Wolves, she has heard of these. The one kneeling beside her is a hairless being, face too tall with too few eyes and too flat teeth. They meet her gaze for a moment before closing their two eyes and holding still. She wonders if this is how the Given sleep.

To test it, she waits long minutes and then murmurs a question. “Who are you?”

The Given’s face reacts, shifting, ridges over the eyes rising. They crack their eyelids at her, as if waiting. Not sleeping yet, evidently.

“Do you understand me?”

They speak a word in their tongue, and at their shoulder appears their gift, little Ghost of the Traveler. It swirls anxiously beside her head, then speaks in odd musical eliksni.

“She cannot, I can.”

Triksis narrows her eyes at the cube. Piece of the Great Machine, gifted to humans and not eliksni. “I hear you taste like crystallized ether and carbon dust, is that true?” It is a partial lie, to see what sort of reaction the comment may get. The Ghost flinches, the Given does not, only reacting when their partner translates. And the reaction seems to be amusement, before a brief conversation erupts between the two.

“Ylem says she is glad you are doing better, and asks how the wound feels. Pain in one place or moving?”

“What is a...?” She stumbles over the word that was not in her tongue. It does not come easily to her jaws.

“It is her name.”

“You have names? Why name what is already dead?”

“What is dead was not always dead. And what is living now deserves the honor.”

Triksis snorts at the thought of honor for the miserable dead things, but this one did save her life, and continues to do so at great personal inconvenience.

What does that mean for her? If it were a Captain who had rescued a houseless vandal like her, she would be honor-bound to them. But the rules must be different for dead things, yes?

She thinks again of House Wolves and their service, their destruction. She decides not to think about that anymore.

“The pain is large and constant. But it does not spread, no.”

“That is…. Good. It may not be infected. Know that you may still die here tonight, or later, if Ylem does not keep your wound clean.”

“I will die wherever I choose.” She spits, then cycles the words back in her own head, and wonders if she is getting sick from the blood loss.

“That is very naive.” The Ghost deadpans, and returns to discussing with it’s Given.

Triksis watches, and listens, tries to pick up words, but their speech is more alien to her than hers is to them, it seems.

“Why?” She interrupts, finally, and the Given and Ghost stop to stare at her. There is a translation, an answer, a translation.

“She believed you were her companion. Because you were cloaked.” It explains. “She apologizes for the confusion.”

That is an answer for the first rescue, but not why she is still here, tending to her.

“Why?” She asks again. The Ghost does not take the time to confer.

“She regrets you were hurt in the fight. She has no quarrel with you.”

“All Given have quarrel with us.” Triksis snaps.

“Not her. She is new-born.”

Trikisis peers at the awoken. She’d never seen a pup of theirs, she realizes. She had thought they must be small. She had also thought this one was perhaps vandal-rank, given their armor. They must have some sort of growth rank, she has noticed they have different general sizes. Are the caped ones not inferior, the armored ones superior? Who’s to say they do not follow similar caste divisions as eliksni?

She has many questions about this planet’s occupants, she realizes. Too many to formulate while weary. The ether in her respirator feels good, if she doesn’t think too hard about her arm, she can pretend it isn’t gone. She can pretend she is just very, very tired, the pain is from something else. She can rest…

She catches herself drifting, gasps a little to draw herself back. Maybe-kind Ylem stirs, and puts a hand on her upper right shoulder, presses her down into the stone.

“Sleep.” Says the Ghost at her shoulder.

“Sleep.” Ylem echoes, almost correctly.

Triksis decides she does not want to be awake anymore.


	3. Chapter 3

“This is stupid.” Calliope-9 says.

“It’s why I told you, and no one else.” Ylem counters.

“You didn’t _tell me_ , I watched you pick up it’s body.” Calliope whirrs, like Selene does. The thought makes Ylem uneasy, she hadn’t considered till now what her mentor may think of all this. She’s not really sure of Selene’s opinion of Fallen, only that she’s never had an issue shooting them. But no one she’s ever met really does. 

Ylem didn’t either, till she saved one. _On accident_. And it responded by not killing her. And then it got hurt and she _felt bad_. 

She supposes she doesn’t need to tell Selene about rescuing a vandal just yet. Her mentor joined the Titan and his partner on the strike to eliminate the source of the Red Legion arms convoy they’d ambushed. Left Ylem and Calliope with cleanup and all the glimmer they could scavenge, which was her brand of an apology for leaving them out. She wouldn’t ask what that cleanup had entailed.

“You’re the one who speaks eliksni.” Ylem points out, trying to gain ground in this argument. The vandal doesn’t stir, seems to be sleeping soundly.

“Yeah, I’m a _Hunter_ Ylem, I learned eliksni to eavesdrop on patrols, it’s my _job_.” Calliope’s default state is exasperated, but she is even more exasperated now. “This is not going to go well for you, at all.”

“It hasn’t tried to kill me, it’s fine, just don’t tell anyone!”

Calliope drags a hand down her faceplate, gloves squeaking on the metal. “Yet. Hasn’t tried to kill you yet. You heard it snarling, heard it threaten to eat your Ghost?”

“I don’t think she was serious-”

“ _She_!” Calliope throws up her hands and sits back against the cave wall. “Hopeless, you’re hopeless.”

“On the contrary.” Ylem retorts, haughtily. “I’m hope- _ful_ that something can be learned from this. How many Fallen have we met that have been willing to talk?”

“Three.” Calliope says, promptly. “Or, well, more, but three that _talked_.”

“Oh.” That stumps Ylem, she had sort of thought she was onto something. “Look, you know I’ve never been off-world. Also, if three others have been fine, what’s the problem?”

“Because people are still pissed about the Barons, people are still hurting about Cayde.” Calliope responds, her voice losing all inflection. She does that when she is trying to hide emotion, so Ylem tosses a lure out into the Light to pry. Calliope is talking about herself. She’s still hurting about Cayde. 

“Callie…” She begins. “This is different. She’s just a lone vandal, we swept the area, didn’t see any more, right? She’s not one of the Barons, she’s not even scorn, she’s just a person. Who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and got hurt because of us.”

Calliope sulks, which is to say flickers all the lights at her disposal rapidly in a wave.

“You’re also the one who noticed she was sentimental about her cloak.” Ylem prods. “Isn’t that just so _human_? Isn’t that a sign we have common ground?”

“It’s a sign that it doesn’t want to lose valuable equipment.” Calliope grumbles. “You gonna tell it how I killed six of it’s friends for the ether it’s breathing right now?”

“Maybe they weren’t friends?” Ylem offers tentatively.

“Yeah? How’d you like it if someone final-killed another guardian you’ve never met to feed you enough Light to heal you?” She does not want to admit her answer to that, and Calliope gloats by shoving up off the rock and looming over her, arms crossed.

“Okay, honestly, I’m less worried about it being able to kill you, you’re not _that dumb_.” She admits.

Ylem straightens some, proud despite the backhanded manner of praise. But Calliope is not done.

“If it does try to kill you, you’re too sentimental. You’re not gonna be able to kill it back.” She lets the statement hang. Ylem opens her mouth for a rebuttal but again finds none. And Calliope snorts in the exo way, some of the aerosol coolant hisses from her jaws.

“Thought so. Azimuth,” Ylem’s Ghost blinks in from transmat, rotating tines attentively. “You keep out of sight, yeah? And call me if it tries to eat you. I’ll be close.” 

He blinks silent acknowledgement, and vanishes once more with a furtive glance at the vandal.

“Callie-” Ylem pleads. “Don’t go. Can you stick around and teach me some eliksni? If I can talk to her, maybe there will be less danger?”

Calliope pauses with her helmet pulled halfway on, does a side to side sway and clenching of fists, which is her sign for I-hate-this-but-can’t-say-no-to-your-pitiful-face. “I can't believe I’m enabling this shit... Chrys will send Azi the translated comms we’ve got, learn off those if you’re so eager.”

“Thank you!” Ylem uses her sweetest voice. The plates around Calliope's eyes narrow.

“Now is not the time to try to join the peace with eliksni clubs. They’ve all gone quiet while we mop up the rest of the Barons’ influence and the prison break. _For a reason._ Promise me that you are not going to go too deep on this.” Calliope warns.

Ylem honestly hadn’t been thinking about ending a centuries long animosity, her current goal was to help this one soul. But she carefully does not let her Light spike with excitement at the thought of other Guardians that may understand the thoughts she’s having right now. Calliope is a Hunter and probably would not have noticed, but she can’t be too careful.

“I just want to understand.” She replies, and she hopes it’s convincing because it’s true.

Calliope grunts and stares at her a long time, before yanking her helm down and disappearing out the cave entrance, sweeping past the shelter of vines.

Ylem settles back down on her heels, looking down at the sleeping vandal. It breathes, chest rising and falling gently, though the rhythm is different from a human’s. Ylem spends a few minutes trying to pace her own breath to match but eventually gives up, deciding the eliksni respiratory system is made of vastly and obviously alien muscles that do not act like hers. Instead, she turns to the Light and meditation, syncs deep breaths to the ebb and flow within, disconnects until it feels like her body is a ship on the sea.

When she returns her awareness to the cave, she is centered, but for a single satellite still in turmoil. She reaches down to collect her helmet and turn it over in her hands. “Azimuth, what are you thinking?”

“The tasting like ether comment is still bouncing around in my core.” Her Ghost admits, neglecting to manifest. “I don’t like being out around her. The sooner your eliksni is passable for casual conversations, all the better for my peace of mind. I made sure Chrysanthemum sent the files.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize the jitters I’ve been feeling for the past few hours were yours.”

“They aren’t just mine.” He admits. “You have been reading as nervous to me. Still hard to look at her and not see an enemy, isn’t in, despite what you told Calliope?”

“A bit.” Ylem admits. “I thought she was gonna stab me after I tackled her. But she didn’t. And I realized she was probably thinking the same. And then I wondered why.”

“There’s a lot of history you’ve missed.” Azimuth admits. “We could go over that, but it would take some time. And I think you were more immediately focused on linguistics?”

Ylem contemplates, context for human and eliksni relations could keep her from making mistakes in conversations. Then again, she can’t have the conversations until she figures out how to talk to her patient.

“The logs first.” She says, donning her helmet. “I want to learn.”


	4. Chapter 4

Triksis wakes once more to little jabs of pain. She drags her eyes open to see helmet-clad Ylem shifting her slightly, and peeling back bloody cloth to place a new bandage. She does not know how long she was out, and fights the urge to whine. But her hands twitch involuntarily, and the Given sees the movement.

“Hello, awake.” Ylem says in eliksni. Her emphasis is on the wrong syllables but it is impossible to deny she is trying. Triksis still does not understand why. And it is beginning to get annoying.

“Hello, awake.” She echoes, insultingly slowly. Ylem copies her a couple times under her breath, sounding things out. It’s unsettling how earnest she is. Triksis almost feels bad for feeding her marginally improper pronunciation. But she is groggy and aches right now, and it’s most directly Ylem’s fault. Though it is also Ylem’s fault she is still breathing at all. She will address that when she is more coherent.

“Better, yes?” Ylem continues, finishing securing the new bandages. She obtained water at some point, and gently dabs at the burn all around the wound. It merely smarts in comparison to everything else suffered in the recent hours. The newly replaced bandage feels like it was dipped in acid everywhere it touches raw wounds.

“Not better, still hurts very much.” Triksis replies, bitterly. Ylem listens, impassive, and checks with her Ghost, apparently still not understanding.

“Hurt same.” Ylem responds. The Ghost corrects her and she tries again. “Does hurt the same?”

She chuffs, but relents and confirms dryly. “Yes. Hurt same.”

Ylem seems satisfied, despite the mockery. Triksis has a headache. She wants to be asleep again, but her body evidently disagrees. Ylem does not help either, as she pries Triksis’s arms free one by one, making a valiant attempt at wiping them clean of blood and grime with her quickly soiling wet rag.

Triksis feels doted on like a pup, and growls low in her throat. Ylem pauses in her work to watch her until she stops, then very carefully finishes the arm she was attending to. She continues to be slow and deliberate after, laying the rag next to what looks to be the upturned helmet of a Red One being used as a water vessel. Her next move is to pull her own helmet off once more and set it at her knees. She’s still sitting like that, hasn’t it been hours? Doesn’t that get tiring?

Triksis waits to see what she does, but she does nothing, just watches her. So she watches back. What is there to do, she supposes, but wait for her to slowly bleed through bandages again? She doesn’t particularly want to engage in difficult to parse conversations right now, but she does want answers…

“Why?” She tries again. Surprisingly, Ylem responds immediately, in eliksni that is poorly conjugated, but actually intelligible and practiced. 

“I am sorry. I want understand. Do you want understand?”

“Yes, that is why I keep asking.” She shoots back. But thinks maybe she is being difficult. Thinks maybe she is beginning to see _why_.

Her Ghost wobbles at her shoulder, quietly chirps the words for “self” and “other” at her ear. Ylem tries again. “I want you to understand. Do you want me to understand?”

“She means she wants to understand you.” The Ghost cuts in. “She wants to learn about you.”

Ylem chatters indignantly in her quick, pointed language at the Ghost, and it apparently argues back. But the row is short, and she turns her attention to Triksis once more, expectantly.

“I want to understand too.” Triksis says finally, and it is honest, which makes her uncomfortable. So she adds a barb as well. “You are very strange.”

Ylem hears the translation and laughs, infuriatingly ignoring the attempt at an insult. Still, its odd how the noise and gesture are recognizable across an entirely different species. The squint to the eyes, the bared teeth. She brings up a hand to hide them. Triksis catches herself almost letting a short laugh out too. Almost. She snorts instead to smother the urge.

“Gift secrets for secrets.” Ylem says, and Triksis has to decide she probably means “trade” rather than “gift”, one being a one-way transaction and her words implying two.

“Acceptable.” She replies, resolving to keep her communications short to make this easier.

Ylem wiggles like a pup, perhaps she really is new-born. She seems prepared with her first question as well, asks slow and practiced: “What is your name?”

“Triksis.” She replies, thinking nothing of it, thinking this is an easy answer. 

Ylem tries it, and it is a particular feeling to hear an alien say her name. It is faster, sharper, when the Given says it. She seems to have the syllibants but can’t roll and drag them like eliksni can. Still, the hiss at the end is almost good, the strange flat human teeth she has can almost split the air the way sharp ones can. And she really does try, she says it many times, shifting her jaw and her teeth and her tongue. She does the best she can, and there is something very warming about that. Triksis doesn’t even move to correct her. 

“You are…” Triksis hesitates, has difficulty with the first sound and then all the rest, and ends up purring something vaguely like the name she heard the last time she was awake. Ylem cocks her head in response, blinks her two eyes, and looks attentive. So Triksis tries again, to offer the same courtesy given to herself. And after a short struggle, settles on something that sounds like “yu-lun”.

“Space!” Ylem says, with some excitement. _Lun_ is the eliksni word for space, she must have recognized the sound from Triksis’s attempt.

“Correct.” She admits, and though her defensive tone is probably wasted, adds: “Your name is difficult to say.”

“No, good. Good, good, good.” Ylem emphasizes, hurriedly. Her kind speaks so fast, it sounds wrong even as her eliksni words are right. “Name space.”

Triksis keens, confused. Ylem makes a face, and looks to her Ghost for help.

“Ylem has meaning in our words.” The Ghost says. “It is dust, dust of space and stars and all things. Ylem. Name-space.”

Triksis clicks, piecing it together. “ _Lun_. Your name is space.”

“ _Lun_.” She echoes, putting a hand to her own chest. The corners of her mouth draw up like they did when she laughed. “My name is space.”

It is a silly, clunky, and literal statement, and Triksis finds it remarkable all the same. Would anyone ever believe her if she said she met a Given named space in both eliksni and their language? Who worked so very hard to save her life and communicate? If she had a band to tell, they’d dock all three of her remaining arms for such a fantastic lie.

Ylem says more in her own language, apparently to herself, as her Ghost does not interject. The annoyance that has dominated Triksis’s time in this cave is melting away a bit.

She lets her head tilt to the side and rumbles a contented noise. Ylem looks over and leans closer, shifting to have her knees kicked out to one side and her torso supported by one planted arm. It does not look any more comfortable, but Triksis thinks perhaps it looks relaxed. 

“You may ask.” Ylem offers.

Her turn, yes, what to ask? “How long have I been here?” 

“Almost-day.” Ylem tells her after a conference. “Enough ether?”

“Enough ether for a moon-cycle, maybe two.” She assures. She could probably ration it close to four if she weren’t healing. But while she is hurting she deserves not to be hungry. Ylem moves in a way that seems surprised, or curious.

The conversation reminds her of confusion she foggily remembers from last time she was awake. Is Ylem an awoken pup and will she grow? A complicated question when their communication is still difficult. But she will try.

“Do your pups not need… ether?” Triksis asks. She knows Given have no use for ether, nor do awoken. Her old Captain loathed them for this reason. Given disrupt eliksni attempts at generating ether out of malice alone, so she was told. But they must grow somehow, and she hopes the Given and Ghost together will be able to decipher her meaning. 

Ylem and Ghost do speak for a long while before responding. “Not ether, other.” This Triksis expected. “Pups need drink. All need drink.”

She holds out her hand, and a sealed packet appears in it. This magic she knows, transmatterial storage is both Given and eliksni tech. But Given seem to have much more space for storage, while eliksni usually use it for transport, if a house is wealthy and can power teleporters.

The packet itself looks unassuming, but Ylem mimes digging out a piece and putting it in her mouth. So it is intended for consumption. They feed on solids like the hive do, rather than liquids like the Red Ones, then.

“Not-given need drink.” Ylem waves the packet, and then sets it aside, her Ghost storing it again.

“But not you?”

“Sometimes. The Great Machine gives drink.”

Is the implication there that Given consume their Great Machine? Triksis thinks this is probably wrong, and wonders in what other directions this poor translation is misleading her. But still, the Great Machine is servitor-shaped, andt it is fractured like the ground at an ether drill site, and has been for as long as eliksni were on this world.

“You drink Great Machine?” She asks anyway, tentatively. “Is that why it is broken?”

“Great Machine gives light, Given.” Ylem corrects, slowly. Her syllables do not flow smooth. “Light drink. Light ether, Given.”

“Light is ether, for you?” She tries to clarify, and Ylem nods. “Why do you need the Great Machine? You have a sun.”

“Different light.”

Triksis trills as she contemplates the influx of information. Light is their ether… If her interpretation is right, it makes some sense, and aligns with her assumption that Ylem is vandal-rate, and the hooded Given is dreg-rate, and the bigger ones captain-rate. She is curious enough to chase an answer. “You grow bigger and stronger with light? Like a dreg with ether?”

Ylem pauses for this answer, the discussion with the Ghost is longer. “Not grow, survive.”

“Your gift called you a pup. New-born.” Triksis points out. The Ghost chirps and spins. 

“I apologize. I used the wrong word there.” It says in it’s almost-good eliksni. “She is mature, but newly alive. She was mature and then died. Now she cannot die. She will not grow any more.” 

The Ghost uses the word ‘deathless’ to mean incapable of dying. Different from the word for back-from-dead, even though that is what it sounds like has happened. But that word is newer, since the twitching abominations the hive corrupted and the emergence of the Scorned. The Ghost may just not know it. She wishes she knew how accurate this information was. She feels more confused than when she started.

“Great Machine not broken still.” Ylem adds, when her Ghost is finished. “Alive again.”

Triksis clicks, remembers many moon-cycles back when her band still lived. There was a day the air quaked and a shiver went through every eliksni at once. Her Captain went to the comms, risked their detection to understand. The channels were full of chatter, all had felt it, few had seen it. Those who had said it was the Great Machine. Some said it was falling, some said it was leaving. Some said it had destroyed the human city and it’s Given, others said it vaporized the Red Ones fleet. In the end, reports coalesced. The Great Machine had done something, but stayed where it was. The Given left their stronghold near the shard and returned to the Great Machine’s shadow. Red Ones went to ground for many days, and then became scavengers as well. Much was abandoned and left empty. Good time to be eliksni. 

Until the Red Ones they had been scavenging from followed scouts home, and burned her settlement. Then everything was just as desperate as it had been before.

“The Great Machine does not matter. It does nothing that lasts.” She grumbles, looking away from Ylem and folding her good arms close to her chin.

Ylem retreats, some, sits back against the cave wall with her legs pulled close. She pulls her helmet back on. For a while, it seems that is the end of their conversation.

“Great Machine gives hope.” Ylem says, eventually. 

“Gives hope to you.” Triksis spits back. “Only makes eliksni into _fa-len_.” She knows the human word for them. They all do. She can feel Ylem’s gaze on her, even behind the helmet. She wants to roll over to make a point of ignoring her, but knows that would not be good for her injury, so she turns her head away instead. 

She stays this way for a long time, and when her neck aches and she must look back, Ylem is lying down with her back against the cave wall, limbs folded in like the birds that used to roost in the rafters of Triksis’s old nest. She looks very small this way, and her breathing is very slow but makes her shoulder rise and fall perceptibly. An instinct in the back of Triksis’s mind worries she is sick, but there is no other evidence of that. She doubts Given can even get sick.

Triksis makes a very low, quiet growl, to test, and it sparks no response. Whether Ylem is asleep or offended, she does not know. Either way, there is quiet in the cave, so she lets her eyelids drop, and rests as well.


	5. Chapter 5

When there are footsteps outside the cave, not long after Ylem falls asleep, Triksis jolts to attention. She reaches for a shock blade that she only now realizes is not at her side. She tries to sit up, only to hiss in pain and fall back down, her vision blurring. The panic does not go away as a shadow passes in front of the door, but as she forces herself to concentrate the figure resolves as the hooded Given from earlier, the machine. It does not put her at ease.

It slinks inside and perches just by the door, settling it’s long rifle across it’s lap in an unspoken threat. She can feel it staring at her, as she shuffles to find a comfortable, less painful posture. Triksis focuses on getting her labored breathing under control. Something prideful in her does not want to show weakness in front of this Given. Her eyes go to her shock blade at it’s hip.

“Mine now.” The machine says in eliksni. “I would not leave you alone with my friend and a blade.”

Triksis gurgles a bitter laugh, pressing two hands on the wound, hoping the pressure will relieve the pulsing pain. “You have little to worry about.”

“I know. You are too weak to kill her without it.”

She snarls offense, taking a blow to both her pride and her honor. “She saved me, to kill her would be disgraceful.”

“Many eliksni are disgraceful. I would not expect you to be any different.” The monotony grates on her almost more than the words. She can’t argue if she can’t detect the emotion behind the insults. She can’t _win_ , can only defend herself.

“Just because I am houseless does not mean I have abandoned the ways.” She bites. “I was dreg of House Kings, loyal to the Captain Aanissk. I was loyal still when the houses dissolved, and gained much favor. Captain Aanissk removed my caps for it. I was loyal until the Red Ones killed them all.”

“Why didn’t they kill you?”

“I hid well, like you do.”

“That does not sound very honorable to me.” Impossible to tell if the machine is taunting or giving honest judgement. Triksis does not know why she cares. She must be feverish.

“Many others deserted in the moon cycles that followed the collapse of the houses. Some turned on their Captains, raided ether supplies. I served my band to the end.” She insists.

“You served your band until you hid and served yourself, while they died.” It sounds like an observation, but it cuts her deep. She knows there are red-orange eyes behind that visor, and can almost sense them. Imagines they are accusing her. The silence reigns for a long moment.

“What do you want?” She asks, finally.

“I want to make sure you do not kill my friend and eat her gift.”

“You think highly of eliksni jaws.” She was not serious when she taunted the Ghost, and thinks the metal would break her teeth.

“I think lowly of eliksni in general.”

And yet the machine has not resorted to calling her _Fallen_ yet, she realizes. It is surprising, somehow. She knows they call her kind this on comms, they tell other humans they see _Fallen_ settlements, _Fallen_ patrols, _Fallen_ caches. Is it intentional when they do it then? Or is it intentional now that this machine is using her word for her own people, in her own language?

It could be a trick, or some kind of gloat. But the machine’s voice inflection is impossible to decipher, it’s intent masked. So she will have to pry.

“Why do you bother me?” She asks. “I am weak, as you have said.”

“I do not trust an eliksni not to attempt to kill and pillage.”

“Then why do you speak to me? You do not need to do that to keep watch.”

It does not answer immediately, and Triksis’s ether sweetens with victory. She doesn’t know what she has done, but it has unseated the reigning champion of this parlay, and that is enough for her, for now.

“I want to know what you’re trying to get out of this. What you want from talking to her.” It says, finally.

“I thought you did not trust me.”

“I do not, but I want to hear it anyway.”

“She is keeping me alive. That is all.”

The machine tilts its head to the side, further than Triksis really feels like a neck should bend, and peers at her like a snake. “Then why do you speak to her? You do not need to do that to heal.” 

Triksis feels her little victory crumble away and hates it for it. She spits a frosty breath in discontent. It was the truth, she does not want to die. But the machine is not wrong. There is something more, beneath her headache and fever.

Why? Because she _is_ curious, because she _does_ want to understand. But mostly because…

“I am lonely.” Triksis admits, at a low rumble. “I have been alone for a long time.”

“Go find other eliksni then.”

Triksis looks down at her wounds, at the cave door, at it. The machine rolls it’s shoulders in a big, exaggerated motion. Which Triksis is beginning to realize is a tell of it’s mood.

“Go find other eliksni after you heal.” It amends.

Triksis curls her fingers, brings her upper hands together to inspect them and delay answering a moment.

“I have tried.” She says finally. “I am not a very strong Vandal, Captains do not want to take me and ration me ether.”

“You said you were good and loyal.”

“You must first have a chance to prove loyalty.” She reminds. “I have given up on seeking that chance.”

The machine says nothing, but it does not have to, Triksis’s mind is already on this track, following the thoughts, noticing the choices she has made in the past day or two. She is coming to a realization.

“Ylem is not a Captain. But right now, having her is closer than having none.” Triksis admits, begrudgingly. “By eliksni custom I must respect the effort she put into rescuing me, and her superior strength.” 

“She is not eliksni, it does not count.”

“I am eliksni, it does.”

The machine shrugs it’s shoulders back, leans against the wall, more relaxed than before. It feels mocking to her.

“Is she your superior? Are you honor-bound to protect her?” Triksis challenges.

“She is my friend, and young and foolish. I am pride-bound to protect her.”

Triksis chitters at the insults. “She is learning eliksni quickly, she is young and clever.”

“I am teaching her.”

“That explains why her eliksni is not good then.”

It does not seem to take the bait, and Triksis feels like she is a dreg again, not fully understanding the big and complicated world, and losing an argument to a smug vandal.

“She is soft, and weak, not worthy of being a Captain.” The machine says, leaning forward, probably trying to intimidate. 

Triksis responds at a growl. “A good Captain takes care of her band. To care is not a weakness. She makes a better Captain than you.”

“And when the Red Ones or other eliksni come and kill her, what will you do?” It presses, as thought it did not even listen to her last answer. 

“I will kill them _first_.” Triksis snarls, braces for the next question in the interrogation.

The machine sits back, crosses it’s arms, and says no more. Triksis does not take her eyes off it. The silence is broken only by her labored breathing. Tense minutes creep by, and she has time to relax, and process the conversation.

The machine despises her because it cares for Ylem. It fears and mistrusts her and has good reason to, given the circumstance. But they are aligned in intentions.

Triksis flicks one eye to look at Ylem, asleep soundly at the side of the cave, oblivious to the tensions. The machine shifts it's posture but goes for no weapons.

“I won’t hurt her.” She says, finally, acting on a hunch.

“Rest.” They reply. “I will keep watch.”

It takes a long time to relax, a long time to trust, but eventually Triksis does.


	6. Chapter 6

When Triksis wakes, Ylem is discussing with her machine friend over a human cache. Triksis has seen these crates, even used them. They are sturdy and easy to latch, even with her three fingers. She has never found much of use inside them, but they make for good containers.

The machine casts a glance over Triksis, almost lazily. Their eye-lights blink at her in an incomprehensible expression. Ylem follows their gaze, and shows her teeth, pleased. 

“Hello awake. Good?” She chatters in slowly improving eliksni.

“I cannot believe you put up with this affront to language.” The machine says. Triksis blinks back, does not know what to say.

Ylem shoves them, and picks up the cache with one arm, scooting over to Triksis’s side. The machine pulls their helmet back on and heads for the cave exit, disappearing into the daylight.

Triksis shuffles to sit up, a little, as Ylem opens the latches on the box and rifles through the contents. Cloth that is usually paltry, but useful now as bandages, Triksis supposes. The rest, though, is gels and gasses and liquids she hasn’t the faintest clue what to do with. But Ylem is looking for something, it seems, and selects a canister of an aerosol.

“She found.” Ylem says, as though it should make perfect sense.

“She?” Triksis echoes, and points out of the cave after the machine. Ylem nods emphatically.

“She is _Ca-lie-oh-pea_.” She informs. Triksis does not make the effort to echo a name as long as a short sentence, but files the information and pronoun away to remember.

“Good, for you.” Ylem insists as she peels the bandages away, which smarts. She then sprays something on the raw skin, which stings. Triksis snarls at the roof, rather than at Ylem, who does not seem bothered by her reaction in the slightest, perhaps expected it. She understands the purpose of these caches now. Clever humans hide medical supplies. It is not too far from eliksni caching ether.

She is focusing on not flinching as Ylem cleans around the wound. She thinks it has grown smaller in the passing days, and the pain has certainly subsided. At this point, Triksis feels she could tend to it herself. And that makes her think again. 

“Why do you stay?” She asks. The question still plagues her, despite the answers that have been given.

“Need help.” Ylem replies, then frowns and conjugates correctly. “You need help.”

“I am strong enough to take care of myself now. But you still stay.”

Ylem glances up at her, and makes a motion for her to repeat herself so she can listen again. She has been doing this lately rather than asking her gift for help. It seems like a point of pride, and a mark of her improvement. Triksis obliges, and Ylem takes a moment to formulate a response. 

“My honor to help.”

Triksis clicks, curiously. “ _Au-whoa-ken_ honor? Given honor?”

“Mine.” Ylem insists. 

“All eliksni know eliksni honor. They follow it or are exiled, scorned.” Triksis explains. “Do all Given know Given honor?”

“All Given honor different. Many honor different in house of all.”

Triksis keens, does not understand.

Ylem makes a noise of hissing air through her teeth. It is unsettling, like the sound of an ether leak almost. She finishes patting down Triksis’s side quickly, but is still careful in replacing a fresh bandage. She has now ripped through a second garment, and the pile of dirty rags on the floor of the cave is growing. 

She sits back and examines the ceiling, she does this often when she wants to explain. Finally, she looks back to Triksis and speaks, accompanied with gestures.

“Large Given, big.” She lifts a hand to show tall, and touches her shoulders and reaches her arms out. After a pause, makes a fist with one hand, and punches her other palm. “Understand?”

“Kellbreakers.” Triksis guesses with a nod. Ylem tilts her head, and nods hesitantly back. Fans her hand with it’s too many fingers, bringing it up to her forehead. Triksis thinks of the stories of the crested Kellbreaker that killed the Devils Kell with it’s skull. “Solkis’s end.” She says.

“Yes. Combat Kellbreakers honor.” She explains. Next she gestures out towards the cave entrance, and mimes pulling a hood over her head. “Understand?”

“Machine Given.” Triksis guesses. 

“Not all machines. Also _awoken, human_.” Ylem says. “Predators. Wolves. Honor in band, honor alone.”

Triksis warbles, confused but also pretty sure it is due to the concept being more complex than Ylem’s current grasp of eliksni language. “Those things contradict, they are not the same.”

Ylem says the word that calls her gift, and says something to it, it nods and translates. 

“There is a saying among Hunters. The strength of the band is the wolf, the strength of the wolf is the band.”

“Wolves hunt in a band. Why is that machine always alone?”

“Ylem is her band.”

“All of it?” 

“Right now, yes.”

Ylem swats at her gift. “I speak.” She insists. “Hunter honors pride, alone and with band.”

Which explains why Triksis felt judged, and the Hunter acted protective of Ylem. She nods. “I understand.”

Ylem puts a hand to herself next, and shows her left arm. There is a band there that Triksis had not noticed, thought was simply part of her outfit. But she touches it deliberately, so it must have some significance. She understands Ylem is different from the Kellbreakers and Wolves. 

“Given brood-mother.” Triksis says, using the word for hive magicians. This seems to give Ylem pause, her chin lifts and shoulders narrow, as though she is trying to look taller.

“Not hive. Offended.” She sniffs.

Triksis rolls her shoulders in an appeasing gesture, likely lost on Ylem. “You fling fire as they do, and float and waver. But you scream much less.”

Ylem grumbles, but carries on her explanations. She says a word in her language, then frowns and thinks. “Scribe.” She says finally, in eliksni. “Writes, learns.”

“But fights, also.”

“Yes. Honor is to know.”

“To know what?”

“To know all, to learn all.”

It seems a lofty and unattainable goal to Triksis. But that sounds like the old stories of scribes.

Ylem makes gestures like cutting and dividing, then draws a circle in the air. “House of Kellbreaker, House of Hunter, House of Scribe. All Given. Understand?”

Triksis thinks she does, and this means her perception of the Given divided by size or age seems to be untrue. Ylem is of a house of others like her, the machine is of a house of others like them. Similarities from house, not caste.

“Bands have mixed members of different houses.” She notes. 

“Sometimes, often.” Ylem agrees.

“Do you have dregs?” She asks. “Captains?”

“Maybe.” Ylem says. “New-borns stay safe, learn, train. Strong go out. Older and stronger lead and guide. One leads like kell each house.”

It is a wise system, and explains why all who they encounter in the wild are frightening and strong.

"And your territory is the Great Machine's shadow. Your three houses share?"

"Territory is the world." Ylem gestures out with sweeping arms. 

“You can’t have a whole world. What of other houses?”

“No other houses.”

Triksis tilts her head and thinks. She’s never met not-Given, humans, but has heard stories. “Non-Given have bands, and live outside of the shadow of the Great Machine.”

“Non-Given and Given are same.”

Triksis warbles dissent. “Not the same, or there would be no different names.”

Ylem struggles for words, and consults her Ghost. “ _Awoken_ with gift still _Awoken_.” She insists. “Eliksni with gift still eliksni.”

“No eliksni has a gift.” Triksis grumbles. Ylem makes a noise she interprets as a whine.

“It was an example.” Her Ghost tries to help. “ _Humans_ have a closer sense of community than eliksni I think. Their world is their home.”

“It is unfair to claim what cannot be held.” Triksis insists. “If you cannot keep it and someone else can use it, you can’t stop them.”

“They held the world and more before their Whirlwind.” The Ghosts says.

This is news to Triksis. She knows the tales of the Whirlwind, what happened to Riis. It is why they are here. But the humans had a Whirlwind?

“Where was home, before their loss?”

“Here. They lost and stayed, rebuilt. One new city instead of many.”

“The Great Machine stayed?” Triksis asks. “And the Whirlwind still came?” All of what she knows, all that she has heard, is of the Great Machine abandoning them. Believing it could have saved the eliksni if it stayed. But it stayed here, for Ylem’s people, and could not.

What if nothing had a chance against the Darkness, Great Machine or not?

“It was wounded.” The Ghost informs. “That is why I am here. We were made in its last breath.”

“It truly is dead?”

“It sleeps. We hope.”

Triksis warbles again, folds her legs and arms to sit back against the wall, thinks of storms and danger and things bigger than herself. She is brought back to reality by how strange it is to attempt this posture with one arm missing. 

Ylem resettles herself as well, in a similar position. Triksis notices how close she is, how unafraid they both seem to be. Ylem gives her a little smile.

“I will learn.” She says. “Eliksni honor.”

“I do not know how to teach. It has been a long time. I do not explain things as well as you.” Triksis replies. Ylem watches her for a few moments, contemplating.

“I will learn.” She says again, and again for emphasis on her certainty. “I will learn.” 

Triksis decides to believe her.


End file.
